


My Heart Is A Ghost Town (All Its Roads Lead To You)

by evexe-n (manatsuko)



Series: Ryou & The Cryptids [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Cryptids, Ghosts, Heartshipping, M/M, Paranormal Entities, and various other vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manatsuko/pseuds/evexe-n
Summary: The creatures that have settled in Ryou's mind - and home - might be actively encouraging him to spend more time with Yugi.Maybe.Most definitely.





	My Heart Is A Ghost Town (All Its Roads Lead To You)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Jackaloping](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673862) by [rowanthestrange_yugihell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell). 



> An attempt at vaguely writing cryptids and everyday paranormal things, ft. Heartship - a oneshot by me (bc I liked the idea too much).

 

 

The more Yugi started to come around his apartment, the more Ryou wondered.

It had been a few weeks since they began their whatever-it's-supposed-to-be relationship. It was nameless, for now, its lack of set parameters oddly comforting for the lack of expectations it brought. That was not what confused him.

It was the way his creatures were reacting to it all.

He'd expected... Something. Not this. For as much as this was his home, it'd always been theirs too, by extension. They'd never been keen on sharing with others, territorial as any real-world entity would be, protective of their home and its owner. It was nothing new.

The monsters were always Ryou's, without a doubt, not _his_.

He had been able to tell by the way they looked out for him, protected him, even if they were not real, by the definition of the word. Once, he'd woken up in a haze, blood drip-dropping onto his off-white kitchen floor from cuts he couldn't remember getting. The spirit had never been any good at cleaning after himself. He'd grasped for the closest roll of kitchen paper he could find, winding it around his wounded arm until the red no longer seeped through, tearing off piece after piece after piece to wipe the stains off of the tiles beneath his knees. By the time he was done, there wasn't a speck left, and his cuts had been shallower than they had looked - _felt_ \- at first. He couldn't recall ever buying this brand of paper towels either. He'd been glad for the comforting whistle his kettle gave not much later, for the vibrations running underneath the living room's floorboards.

There were other little, everyday examples of this: the rattling of his uppermost desk drawer whenever he forgot to take any of the medication stored there, the way his alarm clock would go off at random, but _not_. More than once, he hadn't managed to stumble into bed until 6 A.M., only to hit his snooze button at seven and fall back asleep. Without fail, he'd wake up what felt like hours later - but well rested - in a frenzy because he was _going to be late for school, shit_ , before noticing his alarm clock blinking 7:30 A.M. at him, the sun barely rising above the horizon. Time and space had always been rather fluid concepts, he figured, especially for creatures that didn't exist. They came and went whenever and wherever they wished.

The issue laid in visitors that didn't get along.

His shoes would disappear for days whenever he let the Jackalope stray into his bedroom. In his defense, how was he supposed to know the shadowy corners under his bed didn't like the other cryptid? He'd learned most of the pitfalls by now: never let the cacti near the energy outlets, don't offer chocolate to anyone but the cold spot, and don't put the omni-controlling TV remote on the dining table - the kitchen was the kettle-critter's territory, though Ryou still hadn't figured out what it _was_ , exactly, and it did seem willing to share with the inexhaustible paper towel roll.

Thus, for all intents and purposes, Ryou had reason to worry that they wouldn't adapt well to Yugi's constant presence. However, the opposite had been true so far.

Ryou couldn't remember ever having this many visitors at once.

Monday brought a whisper over his right shoulder wherever he went and a shape only visible out of the corner of his left eye. Yugi turned the lights out and upped the volume on the TV. Everybody present enjoyed the movie.

Tuesday brought a chill in his bones and a stickiness under his shoes when he went outside. For every step he took towards the grocery store, he felt something trying to drag him back, not violently, but urgent nonetheless. He grabbed what he needed and hurried home, unhindered by the feeling that had pulled at him earlier. Yugi was still asleep, so he made breakfast for them both, and left out some extra toast for whatever wanted it.

Wednesday, he swore he heard the pipes hum and something near the bed purr when the two of them fell on it, though he might have imagined those. He was a bit distracted at the time.

On Thursday there'd been a sparrow sitting outside on a bench when he left his part-time job at the library. It flapped its wings in place two times before flying a few meters ahead. He'd followed on a whim. It led him further down the street, turned left at the corner, past shops that shouldn't have been there but were. Every so often, it'd stop to pick at some crumbs. Ryou watched and waited patiently. A lady dressed in a floor-length iridescent green gown had chuckled at the display he made of himself, right there in the middle of the sidewalk, and handed him some biscuits 'for the little birdie', before sauntering off. He fed them to the sparrow, wiping the crumbs off on his jeans. It flew off again, landing near a subway station with a name in unreadable letters, and again on a flickering streetlight, though it bypassed the grassy clearing completely. When he arrived home, four hours had passed and Yugi had been sitting on his doormat, game in hand. He smiled and let him in. The little bird raided his cupboards under the indignant whistles of the kettle.

Old mister Kurayama from the second floor - or was it fifth? - dropped off some home-grown berries on Friday, flashing his pearly white teeth as he told him they'd be great for a pie, but they'd do well in a fruit salad with some apples too. Ryou ate them later that day with Yugi and the others over a game of Monopoly, though Joey expressed his doubts over eating  'those weird-lookin' fruits' at first, just because he'd never seen them before. Ryou shrugged and popped another into his mouth; he'd gotten treats before, and they had all been fine so far.

On Saturday Yugi showed up an hour later than expected and drenched to the bone. The sun had set quite a while ago, and Ryou had come _this_ close to going out on his own when his calls kept disconnecting. Yugi apologized profusely for the water he had tracked well into the entrance, while Ryou ran to fetch some towels and dry clothes. He turned around while the other changed.

"It's alright, honestly, I just hope you don't get a cold after this. What happened?"

"I got on the wrong bus," Yugi replied from behind him, accompanied by the sound of wet fabric plopping down on the floor. "I thought it was the normal one, but before I noticed it'd turned left at the intersection near Tsutaya's instead of right, and I had no idea where I was. I got off when I realized but I didn't recognize anything near me and my phone lost all signal on top of it all." He chuckled. "You can turn around now, you weirdo."

"How did you get back?" Ryou asked as he took the wet clothes to the bathroom, hanging them up to dry. He really wished he could've afforded a dryer right about now.

Yugi shrugged and said, "I tried backtracking the bus' route, but that only got me more lost. At one point, there was this huge office building on a street corner, and you'd think I would know where that was, but no, I'd never even heard of the place before. No light on anywhere either. When it started raining I figured, might as well knock on someone's door, but of course _then_ my phone signal decided to come back and show all my missed calls and messages at once. Scared me half to death. The GPS on there glitched as well, I think. It spammed me with notifications until I pulled up the map, but hey, it gave me the route back, in under ten minutes no less. And now here I am."

Ryou let out a huff of air and wrapped his arms around Yugi's shoulders, resting all of his weight on the smaller boy. The surprised squeak Yugi let out alone was worth it. "Quite a tale. Glad you made it, eventually." Yugi laughed, shrouded in misty white with flecks of gold, and hugged him back.

On second thought, he really shouldn't have been surprised that Yugi was well-liked among various paranormal entities, to the point they'd extend their protection to him as well. He'd gotten along with Atem just fine, after all. It wasn't the same, not by a long shot, but still...

The ghosts probably felt like home for him too.

 

 


End file.
